The present invention relates to a color printer and, more particularly, to a printer driver for converting color output data into optimum color data in units of print file names of a printer and outputting the optimum color data to the printer device.
In a conventional color printer driver used for an ink-jet printer or a color laser printer, the print result often differs from the color tone displayed on a display device or the like. For this reason, the user can finely designate color setting based on his/her taste on, e.g., the color setting window (color setting window) of a printer setting window.
However, to correct colors for print according to the user's taste, test print must be performed while changing color setting on the color setting window many times by trial and error. In addition, since the color balance changes in units of print data, one color set value does not always suffice. Print data must be changed for every print, and this processing is cumbersome and takes a time.
A printer driver for solving this problem is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-185294 (reference 1). In this printer driver, combined information set on an item window is stored in a hard disk together with user information. When the input section designates the user information, the system board retrieves combined information corresponding to the designated user information and sets it as print conditions.
In the above-described conventional printer driver, however, if another data is printed, or the power supply is turned off, the colors must be corrected again from the beginning while repeating test print many times. Although the user can finely adjust the colors, a long time is required to correct the colors of each print data, and the resetting operation imposes a heavy load on the user.
In the method described in reference 1, since the combined information set on the driver item window has no association for each print data, the combined information corresponding to the user information must be retrieved before printing.